Events: (Note that this is not the preferable method of finding events because not all events have been assigned topics yet)

The US Army Chemical Warfare Service, working with a Harvard University team of researchers led by Dr. Louis Fieser, develop napalm (naphthenic palmitic acids), a flammable, gasoline-based incendiary weapon. Early napalm is made by mixing the aluminum soap powder of naphthene and palmitate (naphthenic and palmitic acids) with gasoline. [New England Chemists Journal, n.d. ; Limqueco and Weiss, 1971; Remes, 2000] A later formula, referred to as “Napalm-B,” uses 46 percent polystyrene, 33 percent gasoline and 21 percent benzene. The US uses the weapon in all of its major conflicts. The incendiary weapon produces a fiery explosion that sometimes hits temperatures of more than 5,000 degrees. It sucks oxygen out of the air and can kill people who are not burned to death by asphyxiation. [San Francisco Chronicle, 4/1/2001; Sydney Morning Herald, 8/8/2003]

For most of the war, Britain ignores Albania, and does not recognize a government in exile under Ahmet Zog. Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha will later say that Greece would have considered such a move a hostile act by the British. By 1942 at the latest, the British expected a Balkan Federation of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia to be formed after liberation. The War Office sends a memo to an office in Bari, Italy, in 1944 admitting that Britain cannot stop the partisans from winning political power and seeking Soviet assistance, so, “We must therefore aim at strengthening our position with partisans now in order that after the war we may be able to influence the partisan government.” By this point, envoys from the Special Operations Executive division, as well as some American envoys, are with the major Albanian political groups and they are receiving British aid. The envoys to the Partisans accept the War Office’s decision, but those with other groups believe more should have been done, up to a British or American landing in the fall of 1944 as happened in Greece. British army officer Julian Amery will later write: “Firstly, it was wrong to abandon the Albanians to Hoxha’s evil regime and Stalin’s imperial designs. Secondly, [Vlora] and [Sazan Island] control the Strait of Otranto, the entrance to the Adriatic, an important naval gateway.” [Kola, 2003, pp. 67-70]

Albania is allowed to participate in the Paris Peace Conference, regarding the post-war settlements between the Allies and Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Finland, but is not a full participant, instead being classed with Austria. The Albanian government argues that it was a full member of the Allied effort, fielding 70,000 Albanian Partisans, including 6,000 women, against around 100,000 Italians and 70,000 Germans. It says Italy and Germany suffered 53,639 casualties and prisoners and lost 100 armored vehicles, 1,334 artillery pieces, 1,934 trucks, and 2,855 machine guns destroyed or taken in Albania. Out of its population of one million, Albania says 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were political prisoners, and 35,000 were made to do forced labor. Albania says 850 out of 2,500 of its communities were destroyed by the war. Disputed by Greece - To oppose Albania’s demands, Greece argues that Albania is at war with it. Greece also claims Gjirokastra and Korca, south of the Shkumbin River, and there is some fighting along the border. By 11 votes to seven, with two abstentions, the conference votes to discuss Greece’s territorial claims. Italian King Victor Emmanuel III blames Albania for the invasion of Greece, and Greece points to a declaration of war by the Albanian occupation government after Daut Hoxha was found murdered at the border in summer 1940. Hoxha's Address - Enver Hoxha addresses the conference. He points to hundreds of Albanians conscripted by Italy who deserted or joined the Greeks, who then treated them as POWs. Many were later sent to Crete and joined British forces who landed there. Others joined the Albanian Partisans or were captured by Italy, court-martialed for “high treason,” and imprisoned in the Shijak concentration camp. There are other cases of attacks on Italian forces by Albanian soldiers. Hoxha also mentions attacks on Albania by Greeks, such as the over 50 homes in Konispol burned by German soldiers guided by a captain under Greek collaborationist General Napoleon Zervas on September 8, 1943. His forces also joined German forces in their winter 1943-44 Albanian offensive. They invaded and burned again in June 1944. Hoxha refutes Greek claims that Albania is treading on the rights of the Greek minority, which Albania numbers at 35,000. There are 79 schools using Greek, one secondary school, autonomous Greek local government, and Greeks in the government and military. Between 1913 and 1923, Hoxha claims there were 60,000 Albanians in Greece, 35,000 of whom were classified as Turks and deported to Turkey in exchange for Turkish Greeks. In June 1944 and March 1945 Zervas’ forces attacked Greek Albanians, and at least 20,000 fled to Albania. Hoxha will later say that what Albania terms the “monarcho-fascist” Greek government commits 683 military provocations against Albania from its founding to October 15, 1948. Hoxha claims the Greek prime minister tells a Yugoslav official at the Peace Conference that he is open to dividing Albania with Yugoslavia, but Yugoslavia refuses. Hoxha tells the conference, “We solemnly declare that within our present borders there is not one square inch of foreign soil, and we will never permit anyone to encroach upon them, for to us they are sacred.” Italy is accused of harboring Albanian and Italian war criminals, including “fascists” who assassinated an Albanian sergeant at the Allied Mediterranean High Command in Bari in March. The Italian politicians are accused of threatening Albania during recent elections. In conclusion, Hoxha asks that the Peace Conference further limit Italy’s post-war military, claims Italy committed 3,544,232,626 gold francs worth of damage in Albania, and Albania wants to be classified as an “associated power.” US, British Opposition - These requests are opposed by the UK and US. Albania afterward considers its share of the reparations to be too low. The UK and US will later oppose Albanian participation in the Moscow conference on peace with Germany, held in March-April 1947. An American delegate will say: “We are of the opinion that, first, Albania is not a neighbor of Germany, and second, it did not take part in the war against Germany. Only some individual Albanians, perhaps, took part in this war, but apart from this there were also Albanians who fought side by side with the Germans.” [PLA, 1971, pp. 258; Hoxha, 1974, pp. 539-542, 593-614; Hoxha, 1975, pp. 90-91, 99]

Yugoslav fighter planes land in Tirana, apparently without permission. Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha brings this complaint up with Stalin at their meeting on July 16, and says that Yugoslavia admits it was a mistake to violate Albanian airspace. According to Hoxha, Stalin replies in part, “It is a very good thing that you have friendly Yugoslavia on your border, because Albania is a small country and as such needs strong support from its friends,” and Hoxha agrees generally. However, Yugoslav official Vladimir Dedijer will claim in 1949 that the fighters are requested by the Albanian General Staff and that Hoxha visited central Albania accompanied by the fighters, at his request. [Hoxha, 1979, pp. 73; Kola, 2003, pp. 88]

Immunologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet, Nobel prize winner and first winner of the ‘Australian of the Year’ award, urges the Australian government to develop biological and chemical weapons to use against Indonesia and other countries of Southeast Asia. In 1998, Canberra historian Philip Dorling will obtaim a declassified 1947 report from the Australian National Archives which reveals that in his advisory role on biological warfare, Burnet had recommended development of biological and chemical weapons to target food crops and spread infectious diseases in the “overpopulated” tropical countries of Southeast Asia. “Specifically to the Australian situation, the most effective counter-offensive to threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries would be directed towards the destruction by biological or chemical means of tropical food crops and the dissemination of infectious disease capable of spreading in tropical but not under Australian conditions,” Burnet writes. [Age (Melbourne), 3/10/2002]

After World War II, military cooperation between Albania and Yugoslavia continues. Yugoslavia helps Albania support 42,000 military personnel in 1947. In April, the Deputy Political Director of the military’s Political Directorate, Pellumb Dishnica, writes a memorandum on the need to coordinate defense with Yugoslavia and create air force, tank, and naval units on a joint basis, because Albania is a small country. In his Memorandum on the Albanian Armed Forces in the Post-War Period, Dishnica notes that Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mehmet Shehu is against the plan, arguing that Albania could lose military independence, Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha could lose his position as commander in chief, and the Soviet Union might cut off support. [Kola, 2003, pp. 79-80]

In a letter dated January 26, 1948, and delivered by Yugoslav General Milan Kupresanin, Tito tells Albanian leader Enver Hoxha that Greece, aided by the British and Americans, is about to invade Albania, so Yugoslavia wants to quietly station a division and supporting soldiers in the Korca region. Academic Paulin Kola will later claim that Albania proposes that the Albanian and Yugoslav soldiers should be under a unified command, as a step towards military unification. In his memoir, The Titoites, Hoxha will say that he tells Kupresanin that the request has to be discussed by the leadership and that he personally is against it. Kristo Themelko and Chief of the Albanian General Staff Beqir Balluku, who replaced Hoxha ally Mehmet Shehu, previously met with Tito and said Albania would accept the military assistance. Kupresanin comes with a team to survey the area. Hoxha replies that Albania can defend itself, the Greek government forces are wrapped up in an offensive against the Greek Democratic Army, the plan should not be hidden from the Albanian public, and that hosting the division would destabilize the region. Hoxha says to Kupresanin that “the worst thing would be if, from such a precipitate action, enemies or friends were to accuse us that Albania has been occupied by the Yugoslav troops!” and says Kupresanin briefly blanched. Xoci Xoxe is also at the meeting and supports the Yugoslav request, and says action should be taken quickly. Kupresanin is insulted when Hoxha says Yugoslavia should reinforce its own border with Greece if war is so imminent. Privately, Hoxha believes that “the urgent dispatch of Yugoslav to our territory would serve as an open blackmail to ensure that matters in the [Eighth] Plenum would go in the way that suited the Yugoslavs.” In a report to the Tirana party organization on October 4, 1948, Hoxha will say Yugoslavia was seeking to create “a phobia of imminent war” and divide Albania from the Soviets by “the stationing of a Yugoslav division in Korca and the dispatch of other divisions.” Since he cannot stop the Plenum from being held in February, he tries to stop the division from being approved, by requesting advice from the Soviets. The Soviet government subsequently says it does not expect a Greek invasion and that it agrees with Hoxha. In With Stalin, Hoxha will say that Stalin will tell him in spring 1949 that the USSR was not aware of the situation, though Yugoslavia claimed to be acting with Soviet approval. Yugoslav Accounts - Subsequent memoirs by Yugoslav leaders Milovan Djilas, Edvard Kardelj, and Vladimir Dedjier will say that Albania was already hosting a Yugoslav air force regiment, and that Yugoslavia wanted to station two army divisions, at Albania’s request. Dedjier says that Stalin wanted Hoxha to make the request, and Jon Holliday will later outline several interpretations, based on the various possibly inaccurate accounts. The Yugoslav Reaction - According to Hoxha’s report to the Tirana party organization, after Albania rejects the division, the Yugoslav envoy, presumably Kupresanin, calls for reorganization of the Albanian military, new roads and bridges to accommodate Yugoslav tanks, stringing new telegraph wires, and the mobilization of 10,000 soldiers and mules for transport, over two to three months. The Yugoslav also says Albania should tell the Soviets that it wants the Yugoslav division and ask why the Soviets oppose it. He asserts that Albania would only be able to defend itself for 10 days, while it would take 15 days for Yugoslav forces to reach southern Albania, and the UN would get involved, preventing Yugoslav intervention, which would be Hoxha’s fault. Albania agrees to make improvements and mobilize the soldiers and mules, on Yugoslav credits. Hoxha says the Yugoslavs are working through Kristo Themelko, who two or three times tells the Political Bureau that Albania needs to unify with Yugoslavia to carry out these measures. After March 30, Yugoslavia will reduce its involvement with Albania after a critical letter from the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. [Hoxha, 1974, pp. 763 - 767; Hoxha, 1979, pp. 92-93; Hoxha, 1982, pp. 439-446; Halliday and Hoxha, 1986, pp. 106-108; Kola, 2003, pp. 93]

A B-29 bomber similar to the one that crashed in Georgia. [Source: Global Security (.org)]A test flight for the Air Force’s Project Banshee, located at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, is set for 8:30 a.m. Banshee is an attempt begun in 1946 to develop and deploy a long-range missile ahead of both the Soviet Union and rival US military branches. The airplane used in the test flight crashes less than an hour into its flight, killing 9 of the 13 aboard. Maintenance Problems - The plane assigned for the flight is a B-29 Stratofortress, a bomber made famous by its delivery of the atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. B-29s are notoriously difficult to fly and maintain: their four wing-mounted engines almost routinely overheat and catch fire, causing engine shutdowns, sudden drops in altitude, and, often, crashes. The engines’ eighteen cylinders lack sufficient airflow to keep them cool, and the overheating often causes the crankcases, made of light but highly flammable magnesium, to burst into flames. Like so many of its brethren, the plane has suffered its share of maintenance issues, and is flying without numerous recommended maintenance and repair tasks being performed. Just five days before, it had been designated “red cross”—grounded and unfit for service. It was allowed to fly through an “exceptional release” signed by the squadron commander. Crew Difficulties - The flight is moved back to the afternoon after some crew members fail to show up on time, and to allow last-minute repairs to be made. By takeoff, the flight crew is assembled: Captain Ralph Erwin; co-pilot Herbert W. Moore; flight engineer Earl Murrhee; First Lieutenant Lawrence Pence, Jr, the navigator; Sergeant Walter Peny, the left scanner; Sergeant Jack York, the right scanner; Sergeant Melvin Walker, the radio operator; and Sergeant Derwood Irvin, manning the bombsight and autopilot. The crew is joined by civilian engineers assigned to Banshee: Al Palya and Robert Reynolds from RCA, William Brauner and Eugene Mechler from the Franklin Institute, and Richard Cox from the Air Force’s Air Materiel Command. In violation of standard procedure, none of the crew or the civilians are briefed on emergency procedures, though Murrhee will later say that the crew were all familiar with the procedures; he is not so sure about the civilians, though he knows Palya and Reynolds have flown numerous test flights before. In another violation of Air Force regulations, none of the flight crew have worked together before. As author Barry Siegel will note in 2008, “The pilot, copilot, and engineer had never shared the same cockpit before.” Engine Fire and Crash - Less than an hour into the flight, one engine catches fire and two others lose power, due to a combination of maintenance failures and pilot errors. The civilians have some difficulty getting into their parachutes as Erwin and Moore attempt to regain control of the aircraft. Four of the crew and civilians manage to parachute from the plane, but most remain on board as the airplane spirals into the ground on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, near Waycross, Georgia. Crew members Moore, Murrhee, and Peny survive, as does a single civilian, Mechler. Four others either jump at too low an altitude or die when their chutes foul the airplane; the other five never manage to leave the plane and die on impact. Widows File Suit - Several of the civilians’ widows will file suit against the US Air Force, asserting that their husbands died because of Air Force negligence (see June 21, 1949). Their lawsuit will eventually become US v. Reynolds, a landmark Supreme Court case and the underpinning for the government’s claims of state secrets privilege (see March 9, 1953). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 3, 14-17, 33-49]

Initial Associated Press reports of a crash in Georgia of a B-29 that had been on a test flight for the Air Force’s secret Project Banshee (see October 6, 1948) acknowledge that “the plane had been on a mission testing secret electronic equipment which RCA developed and built under an Air Force contract… Full details of the plane’s mission were not disclosed.… The Air Force would say only that the bomber was engaged in ‘electronic research on different types of radar…’” Local papers have a bit more detail, with survivor accounts hinting at confusion and some contradictions between their versions of events and that being given out by official Air Force spokesmen. Later reports from the Air Force will downplay the B-29’s involvement in Project Banshee. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 56-58]

The Army Air Force’s Air Materiel Command receives the initial report on an investigation of a B-29 crash in Georgia (see October 6, 1948). Perceptions of the crash are colored by the fact that the bomber was carrying equipment from Project Banshee, a secret Air Force missile development initiative. The initial report is meticulously factual, providing an almost minute-by-minute account of the events preceding the crash as told by the four survivors and intensive examination of the debris. The report concludes that it would benefit future B-29 pilots to have more training on flying the plane when it has lost both engines on one wing, and a general recommendation that the pilot and crew should give civilian passengers better instruction in emergency procedures. Though the report is circumspect in the extreme in finding fault with the pilot and military personnel for the crash, and gives only vague and generalized recommendations to help prevent future crashes, the Air Force will heatedly deny that the pilots or crew could have been in any way responsible for the crash. In 2008, reporter Barry Siegel will write, “Years later, this particular claim, in fact Air Materiel Command’s entire position, would cause various veteran aviators to hoot.” Pilot error causing the crash is obvious, they will conclude. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 62-65]

Frank Folsom, the executive vice president of the Radio Corporation of America’s RCA Victor Division, writes a letter to General Hoyt Vandenberg, the commander of the US Air Force. Folsom is inquiring about the deaths of two RCA employees in a recent B-29 crash in Georgia (see October 6, 1948). The plane had been on a secret test mission for the Air Force’s Project Banshee, a missile development project in which RCA is heavily involved. Folsom believes that the Air Force is downplaying the likelihood that pilot error caused the crash (see October 18, 1948), and tells Vandenberg that “certain steps will [need to be taken] if we are to participate in the future in Air Force flight test programs.” Folsom wants more pay and compensation for RCA employees participating in Air Force test programs, as well as newer and safer airplanes to be used in the test flights and a higher caliber of test pilots and crew members. Perhaps the portion of the letter that causes the most consternation among Air Force officials is Folsom’s request to read over the official accident reports. “When a crash has occurred, a copy of the official report… must be made available promptly to us,” he writes. “Needless to say, the report will not be disclosed except to those who are directly concerned.” Folsom’s letter will spark a new round of Air Force investigations into the crash, in hopes of mollifying Folsom. However, the report from this investigation will be classified at the highest level of security and not provided to RCA. Additionally, though the second investigation will find a strong likelihood of pilot error causing the crash, the Air Force will not admit any such findings to RCA. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 65-80] These accident reports will play a key role in the lawsuit filed against the US government by three widows of killed crew members (see June 21, 1949 and August 7-8, 1950).

Phyllis Brauner and Elizabeth Palya, who both lost their husbands in the “Project Banshee” B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948), file a civil action lawsuit against the US government in regards to the crash. The lawsuit claims that the US Air Force, in the person of the pilot and military crew members of the B-29, caused the deaths of their civilian husbands by “the negligence and wrongful acts and omissions of the officers and employees” of the US. The widows’ lawyer, Charles Biddle, asks the government for $300,000 per family. A third widow, Patricia Reynolds, will join the lawsuit in September 1949. One of the biggest issues surrounding the case is the lawsuit’s request that Biddle and his lawyers be given access to the official accident reports, which the government will claim cannot be revealed because they may contain classified information (see October 18, 1948 and August 7-8, 1950). Biddle’s promise that no one else will see the reports makes no impression on the government’s lawyers. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 100-101]

A federal judge orders the Air Force to turn over copies of its classified accident reports about a B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948) as part of a lawsuit filed by three of the widows of crew members killed in the crash (see June 21, 1949). Claiming that the reports may contain classified information about a secret missile development project, Project Banshee, the Air Force not only refuses to turn over the accident reports to the widows’ lawyer, it refuses to allow even the attorney general to view the documents (see August 7-8, 1950). The lawyer for the widows, Charles Biddle, will continue to press for the release of the accident reports. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 120-123]

The Air Force refuses to meet the court-imposed deadline to turn over accident reports of a 1948 B-29 crash in Georgia (see October 6, 1948) to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the government (see July 26, 1950). Instead, the Justice Department argues before the court that because the accident reports might contain “state secrets” that might imperil “national security” if made available to anyone outside the Air Force, the reports cannot be made available. “[T]he aircraft in question, together with the personnel on board, were engaged in a highly secret mission of the Air Force,” the government lawyers argue. “The airplane likewise carried confidential equipment on board and any disclosure of its mission or information concerning its operation or performance would be prejudicial to this department and would not be in the public interest.” Such a claim—that the production of the reports would “seriously hamper national security”—renders the reports “beyond judicial authority,” the Justice Department lawyers claim. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 124-126]

Weeks after the Justice Department refused to make accident reports of a 1948 B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948) available to the plaintiffs in an ongoing wrongful death lawsuit against the government (see July 26, 1950) because the reports are so highly classified that their disclosure might “seriously hamper national security” (see July 26, 1950 and August 7-8, 1950), the Air Force, in a routine review, drastically lowers the classification of the accident reports from top-level “Secret” to third-level “Restricted.” Whereas “Secret” documents supposedly contain information that “might endanger national security” if revealed, “Restricted” documents are “for official use only” and should not be disclosed “for reasons of administrative privacy.” The Air Force apparently no longer considers the documents a threat to national security. However, neither the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the judge hearing the lawsuit, or even the Justice Department lawyers are aware of the reports’ reduction in status. They continue to argue the merits of releasing the reports as if they are still highly classified. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 133]

Federal judge William H. Kirkpatrick rules that the US government must turn over the disputed, and supposedly highly classified (see September 14, 1950), accident reports from a 1948 B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948)—not to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit over the crash (see July 26, 1950), but to Kirkpatrick himself. He wishes to review the reports to determine if they contain any information that might threaten national security, and, before turning the documents over to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, will personally remove that information. In mid-October, when the government again refuses to turn over the documents, Kirkpatrick will find in favor of the plaintiffs (see October 12, 1950). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 133-134]

Federal judge William H. Kirkpatrick rules in favor of the plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit against the US government (see October 6, 1948, June 21, 1949, and July 26, 1950), after the government refuses to turn over classified accident reports that have a direct bearing on the plaintiffs’ case (see September 21, 1950). Judge Kirkpatrick orders the government to pay the plaintiffs, three widows who lost their husbands in a 1948 plane crash, a total of $225,000. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Charles Biddle, expects the government to balk at paying out the money, and to instead continue to challenge the court’s attempt to compel it to turn over the accident reports (see October 19, 1951). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 134-139]

The NORAD emblem. [Source: NORAD]The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending US airspace, gradually reduces the number of aircraft it has on “alert”—armed and ready for immediate takeoff—in response to the changing nature of the threats it has to defend against, so that there will be just 14 fighter jets on alert across the continental United States when the 9/11 attacks take place. [Jones, 2011, pp. 7-8]NORAD Has 1,200 Interceptor Aircraft in 1960 - NORAD is a bi-national organization, established by the US and Canada in 1958 to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16] It is initially responsible for intercepting any Soviet long-range bombers that might attack the Northern Hemisphere. By 1960, it has about 1,200 interceptor aircraft dedicated to this task. But during the 1960s, the Soviets become less reliant on manned bombers, and shift instead to ballistic missiles. In response to this changed threat and also budget constraints, the number of NORAD interceptor aircraft goes down to about 300 by the mid-1970s. NORAD's Mission Changes after Cold War Ends - With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the threats NORAD has to counter change significantly. During the early 1990s, NORAD’s mission consequently changes from one of air defense to one of maintaining “air sovereignty,” which NORAD defines as “providing surveillance and control of the territorial airspace.” The new mission includes intercepting suspicious aircraft, tracking hijacked aircraft, assisting aircraft in distress, and counterdrug operations. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 14-15; 9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 ; Jones, 2011, pp. 7] As this change takes place, the number of aircraft defending American airspace is reduced. In 1987, there are 52 fighters on alert in the continental United States. [Filson, 1999, pp. 112-113] But by December 1999, there are just 14 alert fighters remaining around the continental US. [Airman, 12/1999]Number of Alert Sites Goes Down Prior to 9/11 - The number of NORAD “alert sites”—bases where the alert aircraft are located—is also reduced in the decades prior to 9/11. During the Cold War, there are 26 of these sites. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16] By 1991, there are 19 of them, according to Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of NORAD’s Continental US Region from 1997 to 2002. [Filson, 2003, pp. v] By 1994, according to a report by the General Accounting Office, there are 14 alert sites around the US. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 1] And by 1996, only 10 alert sites remain. [Utecht, 4/7/1996, pp. 9-10]Military Officials Call for Eliminating Alert Sites - In the 1990s, some officials at the Pentagon argue for the alert sites to be eliminated entirely. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16-17] The Department of Defense’s 1997 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review indicates that the number of alert sites around the continental US could be reduced to just four, but the idea is successfully blocked by NORAD (see May 19, 1997). [Filson, 2003, pp. iv-v, 34-36; 9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 ] However, three alert sites are subsequently removed from the air sovereignty mission. These are in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Burlington, Vermont; and Great Falls, Montana. [American Defender, 4/1998]Seven Alert Sites Remain - By December 1999, therefore, there are just seven alert sites around the continental US, each with two fighters on alert. These sites are Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida; Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; Portland Air National Guard Base, Oregon; March Air Reserve Base, California; Ellington Air National Guard Base, Texas; Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts; and Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. Only two of these sites—Otis ANGB and Langley AFB—serve the northeastern United States, where the hijackings on September 11 will take place. [Airman, 12/1999; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]

After Richard Nixon wins the presidency (see November 5, 1968), he orders a review of the Sentinel anti-ballistic missile program (see September 18, 1967). It is suspended and later reintroduced in a more modest form under the moniker “Safeguard.” Nixon says the program will protect “our land-based retaliatory forces against a direct attack by the Soviet Union.” Safeguard has serious conception and design flaws, and is never completely deployed; when the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is signed with the Soviet Union (see May 26, 1972), the program is scaled back and eventually terminated by Congress. Author Stephen Schwartz will later write that the Sentinel/Safeguard program is “the only time that Congress has successfully voted down a major strategic nuclear weapons program supported by the executive branch.” [Schwartz, 1998, pp. 286-288; Federation of American Scientists, 1/15/2008]

Dr. Marvin Goldberger. [Source: Teises Institutas]One consequence of the Pentagon Papers’ publication (see March 1971) is a heavy social and academic backlash against scientists on the Jason Project. The “Jasons,” as they are sometimes called, are mostly physicists and other “hard” scientists from various universities who have worked as ad hoc consultants to the Pentagon since the Soviets launched their Sputnik satellite in October 1958. Though most of the Jasons are strongly opposed to the Vietnam War, and the Pentagon documents tell of the Jasons’ ideas for “a real alternative to further escalation of the ineffective air war against North Vietnam,” the public focuses on the Jasons’ association with the government’s war effort. After the Papers’ publication, Mildred Goldberger, wife of scientist Marvin Goldberger, recalls that the Jasons’ “name was mud.” Jack Ruina, the head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), which often worked with some of the Jasons, says that the Jasons became “the devil” in many eyes. Some of the scientists are publicly labeled “war criminals” and “baby killers,” some have their offices burgled and their homes vandalized, and many face serious questions about their motives and commitment to pure, objective science. Some of the scientists repudiate the Jasons’ work on behalf of the war effort; longtime member Goldberger tells one group of demonstrators, “Jason made a terrible mistake. They should have told [former Defense Secretary Robert] McNamara to go to hell and not have become involved at all.” Others refuse to discuss Vietnam and their work with the Jason Project in their seminars and classes; one, Murray Gell-Mann, is forcibly removed from a Paris university lecture hall after refusing to defend his work with the Jasons to his audience. Physicist Charles Towne accuses the universities of curtailing the Jasons’ freedom of speech. Some of the scientists are falsely accused of helping produce plastic fragmentation bombs and laser-guided shells; some of them are compared to the Nazi scientists who developed nerve gas for use in the concentration camps. A November 1974 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will sum up the debate: “The scientists became, to some extent, prisoners of the group they joined…. At what point should they have quit?” The decisions they faced were, the article will assert, “delicate and difficult.” [Finkbeiner, 2006, pp. 102-113]

Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, 1972. [Source: London Times]President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT I arms limitation agreement (see November 17, 1969). The anti-ballistic missile agreement (see May 26, 1972) limits each side to 200 launchers and interceptors, deployed at two widely separated sites. The restrictions are designed to prevent the establishment of an overall missile defense system by either side. The treaty also establishes a system of mutual verification, and lays down the principle of “non-interference” by one party with the verification procedures of the other; in essence, this allows both the US and the USSR to maintain overflights by reconnaissance satellites. The treaty also establishes the Standing Consultative Commission (SCC) to handle treaty-related compliance and implementation issues. [Federation of American Scientists, 1/15/2008]

An American physicist and nuclear weapons designer warns of the dangers of nuclear terrorism. First in a series of articles in the New Yorker written by John McPhee, and later in a book, Theodore B. Taylor, a physicist who has designed nuclear bombs for the US military, says that terrorists could fashion a small nuclear bomb with stolen uranium or plutonium. This is the first time that such a warning is given wide publicity. Taylor has worked on the miniaturization of nuclear devices. Making a small bomb is easier than most people think, says Taylor. Weapons-grade nuclear material is not adequately secured at power plants or when in transit. As an example of where such an attack could cause the most damage, Taylor says that the newly-built World Trade Center could be brought down with a suitcase-sized bomb if strategically placed. “There’s no question at all that if someone were to place a half-kiloton bomb on the front steps where we came in, the building would fall into the river.” [New Yorker, 12/3/1973; McPhee, 1974, pp. 226] After 9/11, Taylor’s warning will be recalled in discussions of the threat of nuclear terrorism. [Time, 9/24/2001; Popular Mechanics, 3/2002; Washington Post, 7/31/2005]

Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger begins pushing for a new nuclear weapons doctrine to supplant the idea of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) as a final deterrent to war with the Soviet Union. Schlesinger argues that the president needs more options in the case of an armed confrontation with the USSR. Instead of the only two options being either no war, or total global annihilation, he says, the US needs to be able to pick and choose targets ranging from selected military bases to a general nuclear assault on the entire Soviet infrastructure. Because it fits with their idea of having the option of a limited nuclear war, both President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger approve the plan. But Schlesinger says at a luncheon/press conference at the Overseas Writers Association that this is a “change in targeting strategy” that gives the US options besides “initiating a suicidal strike against the cities of the other side.” The US cannot rely solely on MAD as its only nuclear doctrine, he tells the gathered reporters. In 2008, author J. Peter Scoblic will observe, “Schlesinger was essentially parroting the conservative line, implying that MAD was a policy that could be rejected—as opposed to a condition—and that he was the one who had done it.” Schlesinger’s policy is not adopted, but his argument has the effect of chilling US-Soviet negotiations during the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) discussions (see June 20, 1974 and After and November 23, 1974). [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 79-80]

A team of scientists and engineers working on conventional weapons at a Pakistan army ordnance facility are transferred to a secret location to begin working on a nuclear warhead design. The team is led by Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, a founding member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. However, the team will not have finished its work by 1981, and a second, competing program will then be set up (see 1981). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 90-91]

India detonates a nuclear device in an underground facility. The device had been built using material supplied for its ostensibly peaceful nuclear program by the United States, France, and Canada. The test, and this aspect of India’s nuclear program, is unauthorized by global control mechanisms. India portrays the test as a “peaceful nuclear explosion,” and says it is “firmly committed” to using nuclear technology for only peaceful purposes. Kissinger: 'Fait Accompli' - Pakistan, India’s regional opponent, is extremely unhappy with the test, which apparently confirms India’s military superiority. Due to the obvious difficulties producing its own nuclear bomb, Pakistan first tries to find a diplomatic solution. It asks the US to provide it with a nuclear umbrella, without much hope of success. Relations between Pakistan and the US, once extremely close, have been worsening for some years. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger tells Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington that the test is “a fait accompli and that Pakistan would have to learn to live with it,” although he is aware this is a “little rough” on the Pakistanis. No Punishment - No sanctions are imposed on India, or the countries that sold the technology to it, and they continue to help India’s nuclear program. Pakistani foreign minister Agha Shahi will later say that, if Kissinger had replied otherwise, Pakistan would have not started its own nuclear weapons program and that “you would never have heard of A. Q. Khan.” Shahi also points out to his colleagues that if Pakistan does build a bomb, then it will probably not suffer any sanctions either. Pakistan Steps up Nuclear Program - Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto then decides that his country must respond to this “grave and serious threat” by making its own nuclear weapons. He steps up Pakistan’s nuclear research efforts in a quest to build a bomb, a quest that will be successful by the mid-1980s (see 1987). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 11-14; Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 39-40]

Pakistani government leaders consider a secret proposal made by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan that it build a uranium bomb (see After May 18, 1974) and find it to be a good idea. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto writes of Khan, “He seems to be making sense.” Siddique Butt, an employee of Pakistan’s embassy in Belgium who will go on to help Khan’s future nuclear smuggling ring, investigates Khan and finds he is a top scientist who can be helpful to Pakistan. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, another future key associate of Khan’s, is asked to write another assessment, which finds that, if implemented, Khan’s ideas could give Pakistan enough uranium for a bomb by 1979. Based on these reports, the Pakistani government starts working with Khan, who begins to steal secrets for them (see October 1974). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 49-50]

After Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan agrees to help Pakistan obtain the technology to make a nuclear bomb (see Summer-Autumn 1974), he begins to steal secrets from a Dutch company he works for to help them. Khan is asked to help translate a top-secret report on the G2 centrifuge, a major advance in uranium enrichment technology. To this end, he is assigned to a high-security section of the company, but the strict security procedures are ignored and he has free access for 16 days to the company’s main centrifuge plant. He takes full advantage of the situation, noting down details of the various processes. Around this time, neighbors also notice that Khan is receiving late-night visits from French and Belgian cars with diplomatic license plates, presumably Pakistani contacts to whom Khan is passing the secrets. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 50-1]

A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani employee of the Dutch nuclear equipment company Urenco, travels to Pakistan and meets Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Munir Khan, head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. Khan again tells Bhutto that Pakistan should build a uranium, not plutonium bomb, and agrees to continue with his job in the Netherlands, where he is stealing secrets for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program (see October 1974). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 51-2]

Jimmy Carter’s pre-election autobiography. [Source: Kingsway Publications]In an autobiography entitled Why Not The Best? published during his successful run for the White House, Democrat Jimmy Carter says that “the unnecessary proliferation of atomic weapons” is the greatest danger facing the world. During the presidential campaign, Carter will condemn the failure of the incumbent, Republican Gerald Ford, to denounce a recent nuclear bomb test by India, and his slow response to a deal by the French to sell Pakistan a reprocessing plant that could be used as a part of a nuclear weapons program. However, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979, the Carter administration will turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear program (see December 26, 1979). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 62]

Following discussions with fellow Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan, on February 15, 1975, head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Khan proposes that Pakistan formally establish a uranium enrichment program, to go with the plutonium enrichment program it already has. The $450 million plan calls for a centrifuge plant, a uranium mine, and a facility to produce uranium gas, which would allow Pakistan to produce a nuclear weapon. The proposal is approved by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and a scientist known as Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood is placed in charge of the program. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 52-3]

After returning from the Netherlands, where he had stolen secrets to help Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program but was under investigation by the authorities (see March-December 15, 1975 and November 1975), Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan is formally hired to assist with Pakistan’s program to build nuclear weapons. The hiring results from a report by Khan to Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto about the state of Pakistan’s uranium enrichment program. After touring the country’s enrichment facility, Khan tells Bhutto that the program is in a bad state, and Bhutto offers Khan a managerial position. When Bhutto is told that Khan has accepted the position, he reportedly pounds his fist on the table and declares, “I will see the Hindu bastards now.” Because of the knowledge Khan has gained during his time in Europe, he soon becomes well respected within the project. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 56-57]

US intelligence discovers that Pakistan has begun a “crash program” to build a nuclear weapon. The weapon is to be a plutonium bomb made using fuel from a reprocessing plant that will be built in Pakistan by the French and financed by Libya. The Ford administration attempts to pressure Pakistan to give up these attempts, and in a meeting in August 1976 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will offer Pakistan over a hundred fighter planes in return for its giving up the efforts. He will also threaten to “make a horrible example” of Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Pakistan will not respond to these threats, but will eventually abandon this program in favor of attempts to build a uranium bomb by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 62-63]

Senator Stuart Symington. [Source: Bettman / Corbis]Legislation introduced by Stuart Symington, a Democratic senator from Missouri, is passed by the US Congress to set out the US position on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. The legislation, which becomes known as the “Symington amendment,” bans US assistance to any country found to be trafficking in nuclear enrichment or reprocessing technology that is not governed by international safeguards. Authors David Armstrong and Joe Trento will later comment that this puts “both Pakistan [which is thought to be involved in such trafficking] and the Ford administration on notice that nonproliferation would now be taken seriously.” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 62]

Abdus Salam, a procurement agent for the A. Q. Khan nuclear network, misdials a number for US-based machine tool giant Rockwell, instead calling the British agent of its power tool division, Scimitar, in Wales. Salam wants to buy $1 million in power tools and the person on the other end of the line, sales manager Peter Griffin, is surprised by the request, but happy to ship such a large order. This chance encounter will lead to an extremely long relationship between Griffin and Khan, with Griffin supplying a very large amount of equipment for Khan’s efforts. Griffin initially travels to London to meet Salam, who had been put in touch with Khan through a mutual acquaintance. Overcoming his initial wariness about the business, Griffin leaves Scimitar to set up a company called Weargate Ltd, which works with an electrical shop called Salam Radio Colindale to supply Khan’s needs. Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will later comment that Salam Radio Colindale is a “down on its luck electrical shop which proved terrific cover for such a discreet business,” and that it “would become one of dozens run by expat Pakistanis from similarly unassuming corner stores, supplying components to Khan.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 38-39] Griffin becomes a director of the company in 1977 or 1979, when it changes its name to SR International. However, he is not an owner of the company, which is held by Salam and his wife Naseem. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 38-39; Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 101]

Frits Veerman. [Source: atoomspionage(.com)]Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan asks a former European associate, Frits Veerman, to help him with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, but Veerman refuses and informs officials at his employer, Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO). The request is made in a letter hand-delivered by two Pakistani scientists on a business trip to the Netherlands and “very confidentially” asks Veerman to provide assistance “urgently” for a “research program.” Khan wants Veerman, who is already suspicious of Khan (see Mid-1975), to provide him with drawings of tiny steel ball bearings used in centrifuges, as well as some sample bearings, metal membranes, and steel springs used to dampen centrifuges. Realizing that this information is secret, Veerman refuses to provide it. He also alerts FDO, which in turn informs the Dutch authorities. The Dutch begin to harass Veerman as a result (see (August 1976)). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 6]

Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan is appointed director of Pakistan’s uranium enrichment program, replacing Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood. The program is also separated from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and Khan is to report directly to the prime minister. The changes are a result of complaints Khan made about Mahmood and PAEC chief Munir Khan. In letters to both Munir Khan and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Khan had threatened to resign and said that progress with uranium enrichment was very slow: “Each week passing is putting the project behind by at least two to three months.” In a meeting with Bhutto, Khan calls the PAEC chief and his associates “liars and cheats,” and points out there is no way they can carry out a promised test for a plutonium bomb by the deadline they have set. The separation of the plutonium bomb project under Munir Khan and the uranium bomb project under A. Q. Khan does have a benefit for Pakistan: the world is focused on frustrating Munir Khan’s plutonium project, and for a short while A. Q. Khan can “move forward relatively unhindered.” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 57-59]

Pakistan’s Project 706, an effort to build nuclear weapons headed by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, begins work on a facility in Kahuta, about 20 miles southeast of Islamabad. The facility, later renamed Khan Research Laboratories, will be the chief site in Pakistan’s attempts to build a nuclear weapon. Khan believes the location is a big asset, as skilled employees will have access to good education and health care in Islamabad, and he will be close to the seat of the government. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 59]

A. Q. Khan concludes a deal with Gotthard Lerch, the sales manager of the German firm Leybold Heraeus, to purchase equipment he needs for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Khan knew of the company because it had supplied such equipment to the Dutch firm URENCO, with which Khan had worked previously. Khan is worried that Lerch might go to the authorities, but authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will say he need not have been: “Lerch was eager to do some deals on the side and began selling surreptitiously to Pakistan.” Lerch will be arrested by German customs authorities for these transactions in the early 1980s. It will be discovered that he has already sold Khan equipment worth DM 1.3 million (about $650,000), but he will not be convicted of any charges. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 41, 467]

Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan writes to fellow Pakistani scientist Abdul Aziz Khan and asks him to return to Pakistan to help with its nuclear weapons program, a “project of national importance.” Abdul Aziz Khan declines, but agrees to collect technical information in North America to help the program, and to travel to Pakistan during his vacations to help train scientists there. Abdul Aziz Khan will later go on to play a key role in a scheme to send US-made equipment used in centrifuges to Pakistan via Canada. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 67]

In a message to the US Congress, President Jimmy Carter again outlines his position on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (see 1975-1976). Carter threatens to cut off US supplies of nuclear fuel and technology to countries that do not accept international safeguards on their use. However, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979, the Carter administration will turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear program (see December 26, 1979). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 62, 239]

Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and people related to him start to travel to Britain to purchase components for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Khan’s link to the program is already known to Western intelligence agencies, but it is unclear how closely he and his associates are followed at this time. On one trip in August 1977, Khan meets British businessmen Peter Griffin and Abdus Salam, who supply equipment for Khan. The meeting is also attended by a number of Pakistanis: Brigadier Sajawal Khan Malik, a civil engineer building a nuclear facility for Khan, Dr. Farooq Hashmi, his deputy, Dr. G. D. Alam, Khan’s computer expert, and a brigadier general named Anis Nawab. Griffin will become a key supplier for Khan, and Pakistanis will frequently visit him in London. Khan sometimes comes himself if a large order is to be placed, but most times he sends a representative, Colonel Rashid Ali Qazi, and other scientists. After each visit, Griffin receives a telex specifying exactly which parts Khan wants. Griffin also becomes friends with Khan and is invited to visit him at his home in Pakistan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 39-40]

Two retired Pakistani Army officers travel to Britain for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. They are Major Mohammed Sadiq Malik, a procurement officer, and Captain Fida Hussein Shah, an assistant administrative officer. When interviewed by British officials, they say that Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan is their project director. Khan is currently leading an effort to build a uranium bomb. They also say they will visit a company called SR International, which is a front for Khan’s technology procurement efforts linked to two of his associates, Abdus Salam and Peter Griffin (see Summer 1976). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 101]

A group of Pakistani companies headed by Pakistani businessman Shaik Mohammad Farooq assists the A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling ring, although details are sketchy. According to the book The Islamic Bomb, in 1979, a procurer for the network uses one of Farooq’s companies, Asiatic Chemical Industries Ltd., “as a conduit for the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission.” According to a US State Department cable, another of Farooq’s companies, Arshad Amjad & Abid (Pvt.) Ltd., purchases a coordinate measuring machine from Japan and resells it to the Pakistan Chemical Corp., a front for Khan. MI5 will also list Arshad Amjad & Abid as a company of “proliferation concern” due to its participation in “weapons of mass destruction programs.” In addition, Khan’s biography will thank Farooq and Arshad Amjad & Abid for playing “a very commendable and daring role” in obtaining equipment for Khan from a long list of mostly European countries. Farooq serves as the chairman of the A. Q. Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering and is on the board of other institutions with Khan. He will also host a reception for Khan in 2001 and accompany him during an altercation over a mental hospital in 2002. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 185] Khan will also visit one of Farooq’s companies in Dubai (see Late March 2000).

Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan obtains 20 high-frequency inverters, a key piece of machinery for producing enriched uranium, from Europe. The inverters are ordered by a German contact called Ernst Piffl, based on Canadian literature apparently supplied by an associate of Khan’s named A. A. Khan. They are supplied by Emerson Industrial Controls, a British subsidiary of the US giant Emerson Electrical. Emerson had supplied the same equipment to a British nuclear plant, but does not raise the alarm over such equipment being shipped for Pakistan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53-54]

Pakistani military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq disbands the civilian committee that oversees operations at Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL), a facility working on producing a nuclear weapon for Pakistan. The committee had been put in place by Zia’s predecessor, civilian ruler Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to keep the military away from the project, but the deposed Bhutto has recently been sentenced to death. The committee’s role is taken over by Army Chief of Staff General Khalid Mahmud Arif. Zia tells Arif that KRL’s uranium enrichment program needs to be successful not only for Pakistan, but for all Muslim countries. Arif and KRL chief A. Q. Khan already know each other, having worked together on the construction of Kahuta. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 52-53]

A team of Pakistani scientists working under A. Q. Khan enriches a small quantity of uranium for the first time. Pakistan is enriching uranium in order to build a nuclear weapon, but will apparently not produce weapons-grade uranium for another three years (see (March-April 1981)). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 98] The enrichment was performed using a P-1 centrifuge. Khan reveals that he has accomplished this to his wife Henny on April 4, 1978, so presumably it first happens some time shortly before this or on this day. The next day, Khan sends a memo on the enrichment to Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Agha Shahi, Pakistan’s ministers of finance and foreign affairs. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 51]

A. Q. Khan launches a worldwide recruiting campaign with ads in newspapers around the world to lure expatriate Pakistani scientists back home to help him with his nuclear weapons work. The campaign is the result of Khan’s prior failure to lure scientists, such as the Canada-based A. A. Khan (see 1977), to Pakistan, and is approved by Pakistani military dictator General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. The ads promise large salaries and new homes in Islamabad. Applicants should contact their local Pakistani embassy and say they are applying to work at the Institute of Industrial Automation (IIA). Khan writes to A. A. Khan about the campaign and asks him to recommend people, which he does. The IIA address is the same as that used by Khan for deliveries of components for his nuclear work. For example, Henk Slebos, a European procurement agent, will later say he uses the address for deliveries. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 54, 471] Presumably, after A. A. Khan is arrested and his correspondence with Khan seized (see August 29, 1980), investigators learn that the address is linked to Khan’s operations.

A team of Pakistani scientists working at Kahuta Research Laboratories and led by A. Q. Khan produces more enriched uranium. “June 4 was a historical day for us,” Khan will later write in a coded letter to his associate A. A. Khan. “On that day we put the ‘Air’ [uranium hexafluoride] into the machine and the first time we got the right product [enriched uranium] and its efficiency was the same as the theoretical.” He will add: “We had to see our big bosses so that we could get some more money for the budget. When this news was given to them they were quite happy and congratulated us.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53]

A Swiss company named CORA Engineering delivers a gasification and solidification plant to Pakistan for use in A. Q. Khan’s nuclear weapons research. The plant is delivered aboard three C-130 transport aircraft. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53]

The A. Q. Khan network that is attempting to build a nuclear weapon for Pakistan conducts procurement operations in Japan. The existence of the Japanese activities will be revealed in a letter from Khan to a correspondent, the Canada-based scientist A. A. Khan, dated June 13, 1978 and later obtained by Canadian authorities. Although a substantial amount of information is available about some of Khan’s operations in other countries, little is known about what he purchases in Japan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53]

The A. Q. Khan network that is attempting to build a nuclear weapon for Pakistan conducts procurement operations in Germany. The existence of the German activities at this time will be revealed in a letter from Khan to a correspondent, the Canada-based scientist A. A. Khan, dated June 13, 1978 and later obtained by Canadian authorities. The German operations involve the company Siemens and Gunes Cire, a Turkish associate of Khan’s. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53]

Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan sends a member of his team named Javid Mirza to the US. According to a letter Khan writes to a correspondent on June 13, Mirza has “gone to get the training for the control room of the air conditioner plant [at Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL)].” Khan adds, “Now he will finish the control room of [a building at KRL known as number] ‘54.’” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53]

A. Q. Khan writes his first letter to a correspondent, the Canada-based Pakistani scientist A. A. Khan. In the letter, which is written in a code, A. Q. Khan mentions successful uranium enrichment in Pakistan (see June 4, 1978), procurement operations in Germany and Japan (see Before June 13, 1978, Spring 1978, and Before June 13, 1978), the delivery of equipment to his headquarters (see Before June 13, 1978), and the dispatch of a team member for training to the US (see Before June 13, 1978). The correspondence between A. Q. Khan and A. A. Khan will go on for some time and authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will describe it as “an intense and literary friendship, always expressed in handwritten Urdu script, the most sensitive thoughts of the man behind one of the world’s most clandestine program[s], wafting through the unsecured mail for anyone to intercept.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 53] The correspondence will be seized by Canadian authorities upon A. A. Khan’s arrest (see August 29, 1980).

A. Q. Khan and one of his suppliers, the British businessman Peter Griffin, agree that Griffin will provide more equipment for Khan’s work. The agreement follows a purchase of 20 inverters by Khan from another European supplier, Ernst Piffl (see Spring 1978). However, Khan comes to feel that Piffl cheated him over the price of the inverters and asks Griffin, through his company Weargate Ltd., to take care of future business instead of Piffl. Griffin has already been working with Khan’s purchasing network for some time (see Summer 1976). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 54, 471] Piffl will be unhappy that he has lost the business and will alert a British member of parliament to what is going on (see July 1978).

British Energy Secretary Tony Benn announces an inquiry into the sale of British equipment to Pakistan for use in that country’s nuclear weapons program, and suspends such sales. The action results from a tip-off about operations run by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan from a disgruntled former supplier. Ernst Piffl had supplied Khan with 20 inverters, but Khan was unhappy with the price and switched suppliers (see Before July 1978). Piffl then blew the whistle on the business, alerting Frank Allaun, an MP for the British Labour Party, that the components were for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons industry. Allaun, who is associated with the anti-nuclear movement, began to ask questions about the parts in parliament and Benn then decides to suspend sales and start an inquiry. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 54] The inquiry will report back in the fall (see November 1979).

Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan mentions inverters, a piece of equipment he needs for his nuclear weapons work, in a letter to an associate named A. A. Khan, who is based in Canada (see June 13, 1978). A. Q. Khan writes: “Perhaps you must have read in some newspapers that the English government is objecting about the inverters. Work is progressing but the frustration is increasing. It is just like a man who has waited 30 years but cannot wait for a few hours after the marriage ceremony.” The reference to the “English government” concerns the suspension of exports to Khan by Great Britain (see Before July 1978). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 54] A. A. Khan’s papers will subsequently be seized when he is arrested by the Canadian authorities for assisting the export of nuclear-weapons-related items to Pakistan (see August 29, 1980), and this letter will presumably be among the papers the Canadians obtain.

A British company sends a metal finishing plant to Pakistan, but later comes to believe that the plant will be used in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The plant is shipped through a company called SR International, a front for Pakistani procurement operations in Britain (see Summer 1976). The transaction will be reported in the Financial Times in December 1979. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 101, 246]

The US embassy in Delhi, India, sends a cable to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The cable states that Pakistan will be able to explode a bomb within “two or three years”—most likely by 1981. However, Pakistan’s progress will not be that fast and it will not actually manage to produce even a small amount of weapons-grade uranium until the spring of 1981 (see (March-April 1981)). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 86] The cable will be intercepted by India’s Research and Analysis Wing and shared with Israeli intelligence (see 1979).

Israel considers attacking a key part of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The idea is sparked when the Indian intelligence service Research and Analysis Wing intercepts a US cable saying that Pakistan will be able to explode a bomb within two or three years (see 1979). The Israelis knew that Pakistan was working on a nuclear weapons project, but thought it was not close to making such progress. Shocked by the Pakistani advances, they begin to plan a pre-emptive strike against one of the Pakistani facilities, the laboratory of scientist A. Q. Khan in Kahuta. However, the US learns of the plan and pressures the Israelis to put it on ice, which they do. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 86]

A shipment of equipment for Pakistan’s nuclear program is seized in Britain by Customs and Excise. Details of the order are not known, although there has been controversy in Britain over nuclear purchases by Pakistanis for some months. The shipment was apparently prepared by long-time Khan collaborator Peter Griffin of Weargate Ltd. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 100]

A. Q. Khan writes a coded letter to his Canada-based associate A. A. Khan about his nuclear weapons research, saying that he is attempting to link together several centrifuges, creating a mini-cascade. This is an important step in building a nuclear weapon, as it is necessary in order to enrich uranium to weapons grade. A. Q. Khan also says that construction work is progressing on a larger facility at his main research site, Kahuta Research Laboratories, and adds that there is “mistrust and apprehension” in the air in Pakistan over the trial of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 56] A. A. Khan’s papers will subsequently be seized when he is arrested by the Canadian authorities for assisting the export of nuclear-weapons-related items to Pakistan (see August 29, 1980), and this letter will presumably be among the papers the Canadians obtain.

The theocratic regime of Iran, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, halts all of Iran’s efforts to create either nuclear weapons or nuclear power plants. Under the previous regime, Iran had begun constructing a nuclear reactor in the city of Bushehr with the assistance of the German firm Siemens. However, Khomeini and his clerics view nuclear power and nuclear weapons as evil, and ban further work on the project. Iran will resume work in the mid-1980s when it learns that Iraq, its opponent in a long-running war (see September 1980), is working on its own nuclear weapons program, and suffers attacks from Iraqi chemical weapons (see August 13, 1981). [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 212]

The Pakistani nuclear weapons facility Kahuta Research Laboratories, headed by A. Q. Khan, succeeds in starting a centrifuge cascade. This cascade is very important in the construction of a nuclear bomb, as it is necessary for enriching uranium to weapons grade. However, Khan cannot take full advantage of the cascade, as he does not have a regular supply of uranium hexafluoride. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 56-57]

A. Q. Khan writes a coded letter to his Canada-based associate A. A. Khan about progress with his nuclear weapons research. “By the end of the year the factory should start working, and should start providing ‘cake and bread.’ There is a shortage of ‘food’ and we need these things very badly,’” he writes. The “factory” is Kahuta Research Laboratories, “cake and bread” are enriched uranium, and “food” is uranium hexafluoride, so A. Q. Khan is saying that he will soon start producing enriched uranium, but currently lacks the raw material to produce it to his satisfaction. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 57] A. A. Khan’s papers will subsequently be seized when he is arrested by the Canadian authorities for assisting the export of nuclear-weapons-related items to Pakistan (see August 29, 1980), and this letter will presumably be among the papers the Canadians obtain.

The West German television station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) broadcasts a documentary naming A. Q. Khan as the head of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. It also reports that the program is using blueprints stolen from a Dutch plant where Khan had previously worked (see May 1, 1972, October 1974, and March-December 15, 1975). Prior to the documentary, Khan had been a relatively obscure figure, but the story of his activities now becomes big news in both Europe and North America. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 57]

Export control measures put in place by British and US authorities begin to have an effect on the efforts of Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan to build a nuclear weapon. The measures were adopted to prevent Khan from purchasing in the West the equipment he needs to produce enough uranium to make his project succeed. Authors David Armstrong and Joe Trento will later comment, “Khan’s supply network had been interrupted, and he was now having difficulty obtaining critical centrifuge components and other equipment for [his research facility in Pakistan].” Khan himself will write to an associate in Canada, “They are even stopping screws and nails.” By October 1979, reports are starting to surface saying that Khan’s research facility has come to a standstill. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 98]

The Financial Times runs an article showing that Pakistan is continuing to purchase equipment for its nuclear weapons program in Britain. The activities center on a company called Weargate Ltd., which was involved in a highly publicized deal to export equipment for Pakistan’s nuclear program the year before. The goods being shipped by Weargate are mostly machine tools, and the bulk of the company’s orders come from Pakistan’s Special Works Organization (SWO), an army engineering unit building a uranium enrichment facility at Kahuta for nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. Peter Griffin, a long-time Khan collaborator and part-owner of Weargate, tells Simon Henderson, a reporter for the paper, that in the last 18 months he has sold £800,000 ($1,800,000) of equipment to the SWO and has still to fill an order for buses and ambulances. Griffin also says, “I am not helping Pakistan make a nuclear bomb, but why shouldn’t Pakistan have a nuclear bomb anyway?” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 99]

British authorities begin surveillance of Abdus Salam, a businessman based in Britain who supplies equipment for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, in particular through his company SR International (see Summer 1976). The surveillance is apparently prompted by public controversy in Britain over the sale of components that are used in Pakistan’s nuclear program. According to the Pakistani book Long Road to Chagai, Salam is “kept under surveillance,” and a secret search of his office reveals “documents and drawings which were traced to the Urenco plant in the Netherlands,” where Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan used to work (see October 1974). The book’s author, Shahid Ur-Rehman, will say that this information “was revealed in background interviews by Dr. A. Q. Khan himself” and was confirmed by another source. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 100, 246] Salam’s associate Peter Griffin is interviewed by British customs some time in the next year (see 1980).

The British government places high-frequency inverters, equipment purchased by A. Q. Khan in Britain for his nuclear weapons work, on its export control list. This makes it practically impossible for Khan to obtain the parts in Britain. The move follows an official inquiry into the sale of British equipment to Khan (see July 1978). The inquiry found that a previous sale of inverters to Khan, arranged by British businessman Peter Griffin, was legal at that time. However, British Energy Secretary Tony Benn comments: “We acted in a way that was right and proper. But I have a sort of feeling it wasn’t effective, and that what President [actually Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto began and President [Muhammad] Zia [ul-Haq] continued is going to be, if it isn’t already, a nuclear weapon in Pakistan.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 55]

British tax and customs authorities focus on the dealings of Peter Griffin, a British businessman who is known to supply equipment for A. Q. Khan’s nuclear weapons work in Pakistan. Griffin will later say that he speaks to the authorities at this time and justifies what he is doing to them: “Customs started causing me endless headaches. I told the tax and customs people that I was never curious and never asked questions. I did everything within export control legislation. I was a businessman. I never sold a bullet, never sold anything that would kill anyone. When the Brits tried to appeal to my better nature and said, ‘This is nuclear stuff you’re contributing to,’ I said, ‘As far as I am concerned A. Q. Khan’s work is for peaceful purposes only and I believe that all countries have an unalienable right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. I’ll stop just as soon as you stop selling small arms, handcuffs, and torture equipment to African countries.’” Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will comment, “From now on this would be Griffin’s justification for all the work he would do for Khan.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 55]

British businessman Peter Griffin is unable to obtain a license to export inverters to Pakistan, where they are wanted by his customer A. Q. Khan for nuclear weapons work. Griffin tries to obtain the inverters from Emerson Industrial Controls, which had previously supplied Khan with them through both Griffin and another intermediary (see Spring 1978). However, Griffin’s applications for an export license are refused twice. This is because the British government is now aware of the transactions and has placed inverters on its export control list (see November 1979). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 55]

British Customs and Excise officers interview Peter Griffin, a British businessman who supplies equipment for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Griffin tells customs that he has recently received an order for six devices known as mandrels, equipment used to produce high-precision cylindrical objects. Griffin knows it will be difficult to deliver this order, as a previous order of equipment was seized by customs (see February 1979). He has informed the head of Pakistan’s Special Works Organization (SWO) that he will be unable to ship them, because he will not get an export license. However, he obtains the mandrels and moves them to an export packager, to stop them being damaged. Apparently, they are the final piece of equipment ordered by SWO for the production of bellows, which a 2005 customs report will describe as “centrifuge component parts.” Griffin tells investigators that he did not originally understand what the equipment was to be used for, but now realizes its intended use. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 99-100] Abdus Salam, one of Griffin’s business partners, was put under surveillance the previous year (see (Fall 1979)).

Some fighters opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan begin training in the US. According to journalist John Cooley, the training is done by Navy Seals and Green Beret officers who have taken draconian secrecy oaths. Key Pakistani officers are trained, as well as some senior Afghan mujaheddin. Much of the training takes place in Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia, which is said to be the CIA’s main location for training spies and assets. Other training takes place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Harvey Point, North Carolina, and Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia. Subjects are trained in how to detect explosives, surveillance, how to recruit new agents, how to run paramilitary operations, and more. They are taught to use many different weapons as well, including remote-controlled mines and bombs, and sophisticated timers and explosives. Cooley claims that “apparently [no] Arab or other foreign volunteers” are trained in the US. [Cooley, 2002, pp. 70-72] However, in the late 1980s, US consular official Michael Springmann will notice fighters from many Middle Eastern nations are getting US visas, apparently to train in the US for the Afghan war (see September 1987-March 1989). Additionally, more training takes place in other countries. For instance, Cooley will note, “By the end of 1980, US military trainers were sent to Egypt to impart the skills of the US Special Forces to those Egyptians who would, in turn, pass on the training to the Egyptian volunteers flying to the aid of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan.” Cooley will further note, “Time and time again, these same techniques reappear among the Islamist insurgents in Upper Egypt and Algeria, since the ‘Afghani’ Arab veterans began returning there in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” [Cooley, 2002, pp. 70-72] It is not known how long these training programs continue.

At this time, an engineer by the name of Joe Turner is working in the gas centrifuge program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His work pertains not to actual centrifuges, but to the platforms upon which the centrifuges are installed. [Washington Post, 8/10/2003; WorldNetDaily, 8/12/2003Sources: Unnamed US intelligence, US administration, and/or UN inspectors]

Acting on a tip-off from British authorities, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police monitors two officials working for the A. Q. Khan nuclear purchasing ring as they enter Canada. The officials are Anwar Ali and Imtiaz Ahmad Bhatti, of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. They come to Canada on diplomatic visas to purchase parts to make inverters—equipment that Khan needs to be able to produce weapons-grade uranium in Pakistan. The parts were formerly purchased in Britain, but that country is more aware of Khan’s attempts now, so he is forced to send people to Canada. Unaware of the close surveillance, Ali and Bhatti make contact with a local purchasing network of three naturalized Canadian citizens, Salam Elmenyami, Mohammad Ahmad, and A. A. Khan, who has been an associate of Khan’s since 1977 (see 1977). Over the next few weeks, the Canadians watch as the three men use a shopping list given them by Ali and Bhatti to buy resistors, capacitors, condensers, and other equipment through two electrical supply shops in Montreal. The gear comes from the US, from companies including General Electric, Westinghouse, RCA, and Motorola. The two shipping agents for moving it to Pakistan include Khalid Jassim General Trading, a Khan front organization operating out of the United Arab Emirates (see Before September 1980). The trio make at least 10 shipments of parts and equipment to Pakistan, with a total value of over half a million Canadian dollars. However, they are arrested in late August (see August 29, 1980). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 103]

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrests a trio of purchasing agents working for the A. Q. Khan nuclear proliferation ring. The three men, Salam Elmenyami, Mohammad Ahmad, and A. A. Khan, had been under surveillance since July (see July-August 29, 1980). Almenyawi and Ahmad admit purchasing equipment, but say they did not know what it was for. Released the next day, A. A. Khan goes to Montreal railway station, where he removes a suitcase from a locker, takes some documents out of it, and rips them up. The documents will later be found and reassembled. One of them is a paper by an American scientist on the use of centrifuges for enriching uranium. A. A. Khan will tell investigators he was taking the article to another scientist. After ripping the documents up, he goes to the airport, but is arrested. The trio’s two contacts, Pakistani officials Anwar Ali and Imtiaz Ahmad Bhatti, will not be arrested at all. Bhatti will become a senior official at A. Q. Khan’s research facility in Pakistan; Ali will become chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 2006. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 103, 106] The three men will later be put on trial, but A. A. Khan will be acquitted and Almenyawi and Ahmad will receive light sentences (see Late 1980 or After).

Abdus Salam, a supplier for the Pakistani nuclear weapons program run by A. Q. Khan, moves from Britain to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 102; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 56] Salam had supplied equipment for the weapons program from Britain, but the local authorities became extremely interested in his activities (see (Fall 1979)), forcing his relocation. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 102] The move is performed in co-operation with the British businessman Peter Griffin, a close associate of Salam and Khan who also wants to leave Britain because of heavy interest in his work by the authorities. Salam and Griffin agree that Salam will move to Dubai first, with Griffin remaining in Britain to look after that end of Khan’s supply chain. Griffin will say that one reason for the move is that “UK exports to Dubai were not so heavily watched and from there could go anywhere.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 56] In Dubai, Salam serves as a director of a company called Khalid Jassim General Trading, apparently named after his local partner. When visited by a reporter for The Times of London in September 1980 (see September 1980), the company consists of a single room inside a small apartment and has only two office staff. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 102]

Times of London reporter Simon Henderson finds equipment needed for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program outside the office of a supplier in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The equipment, found in a hallway outside the office of Khalid Jassim General Trading, is in four boxes labelled “Mikron infrared thermometers.” The manufacturer, Mikron Instruments of New Jersey, had been told the instruments were for a cement factory in Sharjah, near Dubai. However, Mikron says the instruments can be used to measure the temperature of “moving objects without making contact and in conditions of extreme radiation,” which Henderson thinks makes them “ideal” for use in uranium enrichment centrifuges. Khalid Jassim General Trading and one of its owners, Abdus Salam, have been shipping parts to A. Q. Khan, head of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, for some time (see Summer 1976). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 106-7]

On a trip to New York, Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq meets with former US President Richard Nixon. The meeting is to discuss the Soviet-Afghan War, but Pakistan’s nuclear program also comes up. General Khalid Mahmud Arif, who accompanies Zia, will later say that Nixon makes it clear he is in favor of Pakistan gaining nuclear weapons capability. Nixon does not say that he is acting for Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, but, according to authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clarke, “his comments signal […] the way ahead,” as the future Reagan administration will enable Pakistan to continue work on its nuclear weapons program without being sanctioned. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 76]

Three purchasers working for the A. Q. Khan nuclear proliferation ring are put on trial in Canada. The three men, A. A. Khan, Salam Elmenyami, and Mohammad Ahmad, had been monitored by Canadian authorities (see July-August 29, 1980) and arrested in August 1980 (see August 29, 1980). They are charged with a variety of offences, including failing to get export licenses, exporting goods imported from the US without adding value, and violating a law that regulates nuclear sales to other countries. A. A. Khan's Defense - Restrictions on hearsay evidence mean that prosecutors cannot fully reveal A. Q. Khan’s role in the purchasing ring, so A. A. Khan is able to explain away cryptic correspondence with A. Q. Khan seized upon his arrest. For example, A. Q. Khan referred to enriching uranium as “put[ting] air in the machine,” but A. A. Khan claims this is a reference to producing cooking gas. He also claims that components they purchased to make inverters—equipment necessary to enrich uranium—are actually for textile and food processing plants. Testimony about Invertors Curtailed - In addition, a witness who works for the British arm of the company Emerson Electric refuses to provide details of the sale of inverters to Pakistan through third parties, meaning that only portions of his testimony are admitted to the jury. Chief prosecutor Guy Gilbert will say that if the jury had got this testimony, it would have provided a “clear demonstration” the exported parts would be used for building inverters. Sentences - At the end of the two-month trial, Almenyani and Ahmad are convicted on one count of exporting goods without a proper licence and fined $3,000 (Canadian). The maximum penalty for this offense is a fine of $25,000 (Canadian) and five years in prison. A. A. Khan is acquitted entirely. In a reference to many other failed prosecutions of A. Q. Khan’s associates in the west, authors David Armstrong and Joe Trento will write that this result will “become familiar in the years ahead.” Gilbert will later allege that the judge deliberately favored the defense (see April 10, 2006). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 105]

A State Department report finds that Pakistan is “within 12 to 18 months” of exploding a nuclear device. The assessment is drafted by an official named P. D. Constable of the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and is sent to the National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 82]

At some time in 1981, Pakistan begins digging some tunnels under the Ras Koh mountains. The work is apparently related to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, which begins preparation for a cold test of a nuclear weapon this year (see Shortly After May 1, 1981). This work is noticed by both India and Israel, who also see other signs that work is continuing on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Tunnels in these mountains will be used when Pakistan tests nuclear weapons in 1998 (see May 28, 1998). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 86, 275]

Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq initiates a second program to design a warhead to deliver Pakistani nuclear weapons. The program is to be headed by nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and is to be based at his research facility in Kahuta. It will compete with another warhead design team that has been working since 1974 (see March 1974), but has not yet completed its task. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 91]

A briefing by Pakistani scientist Ishrat Usmani saying that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program is experiencing difficulties is published in the influential European nuclear publication Nucleonics Week. According to Usmani, a former head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the program faces “severe difficulties” and is unlikely ever to be capable of producing even the crudest of nuclear devices. However, Usmani, who has worked for the United Nations and is a trusted figure in the West, knows that Pakistan’s program is actually going well and several operational cascades have already been built. It appears the misleading information finds its way into print as part of a plan to convince US lawmakers to enable a change to America’s policy towards Pakistan. The Pakistanis are to be given increased aid by the incoming Reagan administration despite their nuclear weapons program, in return for their support against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 79]

Saudi Arabia offers the Pakistani government $800 million to help develop a nuclear bomb, according to the London Sunday Times. Reportedly, the offer is contingent on Pakistan not sharing the technology with Iraq or Libya, and Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan is involved in the negotiations. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 118, 248]

The incoming Reagan administration marginalizes the State Department’s Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Its director is supposed to be the primary advisor to the president on non-proliferation issues, but, according to authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, he is “kept out of Reagan’s way.” In addition, many staffers are fired. Richard Barlow, an intern who will go on to have a long career in intelligence, will say that the firings greatly damaged the agency’s morale, commenting, “There were grown men crying around me in the office.” One reason for this may be that ACDA had kept former President Jimmy Carter well informed of Pakistan’s attempts to build a bomb, leading to sanctions against that country. However, the Reagan administration now wants to get close to Pakistan, whose support is viewed as necessary for the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 78]

Congressman Alan Cranston (D-CA) writes to Secretary of State Alexander Haig about signals that the Reagan administration is preparing to turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program in return for Pakistani support against the Soviet Union. Details of the deal are already being leaked, and there are rumors the aid for Pakistan will even include F-16 fighters. “I view our nation’s leadership in international nuclear non-proliferation efforts as a central component of our national security program,” Cranston writes. He adds that without much digging he has learned that “the Pakistanis—through continued purchases of sensitive hardware and dual use technology in Europe—have achieved swift progress towards making their new reprocessing plant operational and have continued development of larger reprocessing and enrichment plants.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 80-81]

Congressman Jonathan Bingham (D-NY) says that Pakistan’s nuclear policy represents a “clear and present danger to the US and indeed Western security interests in the Persian Gulf and South Asia.” Bingham, chairman of the House International Economic Policy and Trade Subcommittee, is part of a group of congressmen who oppose a plan by the Reagan administration to turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program in return for support against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Another of the group is former astronaut and current Senator John Glenn (D-OH). One of Glenn’s aides, Len Weiss, will later describe the feeling in Congress at this time: “Afghanistan had a huge effect on the Hill, becoming a marker of patriotism. There were only two choices. You were against the Soviets and therefore for Pakistan. Or you were against Pakistan and somehow for the Soviets. Nobody thought to tell us that we could be against Pakistan’s bomb and against the Soviets too. That required too much work for the Reagan people. They were lazy and short-sighted.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 80, 475]

Pakistan Foreign Minister Agha Shahi and General Khalid Arif visit Washington to discuss the new Reagan administration’s plans for the Soviet-Afghan War. The new administration is aware that Pakistani support is crucial if it wants to keep up US aid to anti-communist fighters in Afghanistan. However, the Pakistanis impose a number of conditions on their participation, one of which is that the US does not complain about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development program. According to former State Department official Dennis Kux, Shahi and Arif tell US Secretary of State Alexander Haig that Pakistan will not compromise on its nuclear program. Haig replies that if Pakistan conducts a nuclear test, this will cause trouble in Congress and “make it difficult to cooperate with Pakistan in the way that the Reagan administration hoped.” However, if Pakistan does not perform a test, the nuclear program “need not become a centerpiece of the US-Pakistani relationship.” State Department South Asia specialist James Coon will comment that there is “a tacit understanding that the Reagan administration could live with Pakistan’s nuclear program as long as Islamabad did not explode a bomb.” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 118, 248] Over the next few months, Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance James Buckley and other US officials travel back and forth between Washington and Pakistan, in the words of authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, “refining the back-channel deal on the Pakistan nuclear program,” and reassuring the Pakistanis that the Reagan administration will allow their work on the bomb to continue. On one occasion, Arif meets Buckley and they discuss the sale of F-16 fighters to Pakistan. Arif then raises the nuclear issue, but, Arif will later say, “The Americans suggested there was no need to talk about Pakistan’s [nuclear] program any more.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 88-89]

Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq orders nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan to prepare for a cold test of a nuclear weapon. The instruction is given shortly after Khan tells Zia that he has managed to enrich uranium to weapons grade (see (March-April 1981)), and after Zia visits the facility where Khan works, re-naming it after him. The CIA will soon learn of this instruction. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 84-85, 90]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes 10-7 to approve a six-year waiver requested by the Reagan administration allowing it to provide aid to Pakistan. The waiver is required because foreign aid for Pakistan was cut off in 1979 in response to revelations that it had acquired unsafeguarded uranium enrichment technology. The Reagan administration wants to provide aid to Pakistan to get it to assist anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan. An increased aid package will be approved in December (see December 1981). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 118-119; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 85]

In response to information it has received about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program (see June 2, 1981), Israel begins planning a pre-emptive strike against one of Pakistan’s main nuclear facilities. The complex to be targeted is in Kahuta, near Islamabad, and houses Pakistan’s uranium enrichment centrifuges. However, the plan is not implemented due to US pressure, applied due to friendly US relations with Pakistan and Pakistani co-operation on anti-Soviet efforts in Afghanistan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 86]

Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, Yehuda Blum, tells the UN General Assembly that “there is abundant evidence indicating that [Pakistan] is producing nuclear weapons.” He adds that “at the Engineering Research Labs… Pakistan is secretly constructing a plant for the production of weapons-grade enriched uranium by centrifuges” based on a technology “stolen from the URENCO plant in the Netherlands.” He also says that Pakistan has established front companies in 14 countries to acquire components, and that Pakistan is close to building a cascade of at least 1,000 centrifuges. In addition, the Pakistanis intend to build more than 10,000 of them, “which in turn could produce about 150 kg of enriched uranium a year, sufficient for seven nuclear explosive devices every year.” Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will write that this information is “what the US had known for several years but had chosen not to share with the rest of the world.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 85-86]

The US State Department writes a cable to Israel to allay Israeli fears about Pakistan’s nuclear program (see June 2, 1981). However, the communication contains information the US must know to be untrue. The cable says, “We believe that the Pakistanis have so far been unable to make their centrifuge machines work and that they have not yet produced any significant quantities of enriched uranium.” Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will say this is a “blatant lie,” as the US knows the opposite is true. The cable concludes, “Even if the Pakistanis do manage to eventually overcome their problems in the enrichment area, it would likely take them a few years of successful operations to produce sufficient fissile material to fabricate a single device.” It also estimates that it will take Pakistan another decade before it has a suitable missile system to go with warheads. Levy and Scott-Clark will add, “Not only was the US misrepresenting the available intelligence, but it was also ignoring several articles published by Khan himself in Western nuclear gazettes in which he had explicitly laid out the hurdles his centrifuge construction program had overcome.” Moshe Ya’alon, later head of Israeli military intelligence, will say that the Israelis are stunned by this response. “The US was glib on Pakistan,” he will add. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 85-86]

A 5,000-lb shipment of zirconium, a grey-white metal that is commonly used to lag fuel rods in nuclear reactors, is seized at JFK Airport in New York. The metal had been checked in for a Pakistan International Airways flight in a container marked “climbing gear.” When airline staff ask to see inside, the passenger traveling with it runs off. It is later determined that he is a retired Pakistani Army officer and close friend of Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. The metal had been purchased in Oregon by an American business on behalf of a Pakistani-based company called S. J. Enterprises. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 90]

Some time in 1982 or 1983, Abdus Salam, a member of the nuclear proliferation ring run by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan, leaves Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Salam had been doing business there for some time, using the company Khalid Jassim General Trading (see Before September 1980). According to David Reed, who will later do business with Salam in Florida, Salam departs Dubai after being sued by the local partner in a joint venture, presumably Khalid Jassim. Salam will tell Reed that the partner claimed to a court that he—the partner—had started the business and put up all the money, the court had sided with the local, and Salam had lost all his money and been sent to jail. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 108] Salam arrives in the US around this time (see December 31, 1982).

The National Preparedness Directorate within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for overseeing parts the highly classified Continuity of Government (COG) program, develops and maintains a high-tech fleet of mobile command centers, known as Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) units. The MERS vehicles, crafted out of 18-wheel tractor-trailer trucks, are meant to provide federal leaders with the ability to not only escape a nuclear attack, but also monitor information and communicate with the rest of the government while on the move. The MERS units cost billions of dollars to develop and are packed with sophisticated technology. According to Cox News Service: “Sensitive radio, telephone, and satellite gear—much of it classified—is stored in custom-built trucks that resemble mobile bank vaults.… The mobile units can operate for a month without support. They include generators capable of powering a three-story airport terminal and a fuel tanker that can suck diesel fuel from whatever service stations survive the nuclear blast.” One truck carries a pop-up satellite dish and weighs 24 tons. Early models, however, are inundated with problems. When the first two MERS prototypes are tested in 1984, one gets wedged beneath a highway overpass because it is too tall, while the other causes a road to collapse because it is too heavy. There are also technical flaws. The communication system at the heart of the Continuity of Government program does not function properly from late 1985 until at least December 1990 (see Late 1985 and December 1990). Despite the complications, FEMA eventually constructs 300 MERS vehicles and stations them at secure facilities in Washington State, Massachusetts, Denver, southern Georgia, and rural Texas. Most of the MERS vehicles are used rarely, if ever. “Billions of dollars were spent on such equipment, much of which is now gathering dust in Army depots,” the New York Times reports in 1994. [Emerson, 8/7/1989; Cox News Service, 2/22/1993; New York Times, 4/18/1994]

Abdus Salam, a member of the nuclear equipment purchasing ring run by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan, sets up a business named International Reliance in Florida. The name is similar to a British-based business, Source Reliance International (a.k.a. SR International), in which Salam has been a partner and which has been active in the nuclear ring (see Summer 1976). Around the same time, Salam also establishes a number of other US businesses, including three import-export firms, two trading companies, two communications outfits, a computer retailer, two hospitality companies, a financial services enterprise, and several companies involved in indeterminate business. It is unclear if Salam is living in the US at this time or arrives some time the following year. Before coming to the US, he resided in Britain and then the United Arab Emirates, but leaves there around this time, apparently due to a business dispute (see 1982-1983). Authors Joe Trento and David Armstrong will write that given Salam’s involvement in proliferation activities in Britain and Dubai, “it seems reasonable to assume that the US authorities would have kept tabs on him once he arrived.” However, no information about any surveillance of or cooperation with Salam on the part of US authorities is definitively known. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 114]

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